is there no redemption? no common good?
is there nothing we can do for ourselves? or only what we should?

comes the hard admission of what we don't provide
goes the insistence on the ways and means that so divide

they so divide

side by side suffering loneliness (our lives are parallel)
phony collective progress (our lives are parallel)
accepting that it's all such a mess (our lives are parallel)
gesturing without hope of redress (our lives are parallel)

our lives are parallel

forging little plays of deception and pain
as we watch our foundation crumble away
staggering like birds against a hurricane
and trying all the while to stay out of each other's way